[MD] Emergent Consciousness

[david buchanan]

Ham asked:
It continues to amaze me how the simplest, most self-evident concepts 
provoke rage in this forum. Platt has been making an eloquent appeal for 
recognition of the individual intellect,...  Why is his suggestion 
unreasonable?  Why is an analysis of of the individual perspective "out of 
bounds" in the Metaphysics of Quality?  Does it impugn Pirsig's thesis?  
Does it lessen our understanding of Quality? ...And what is the "point" I 
don't get?  That there is no individual consciousness?

dmb says:
You shouldn't be amazed because the MOQ attacks some of the simplest, self 
evident concepts. What amazes me is that anyone would come to a forum like 
this to defend the autonomous self, victorian morality, theisim, faith and 
all the other stuff that is so thoroughly attacked and deconstructed in 
Pirsig's books. Anyway, as you can see from the quotes below, the attack on 
the individual self is not about political ideologies. Its a philosophical 
point. Its a religious point. Its a metaphysical criticism of our most basic 
assumptions. I think that's what you and don't get.

Either that, or the Buddha was a Commie.

Arlo quoted from Lila:
"...This Cartesian "Me," this autonomous little homunculus who sits behind 
our eyeballs looking out through them in order to pass judgment on the 
affairs of the world, is just completely ridiculous. This self-appointed 
little editor of reality is just an impossible fiction that collapses the 
moment one examines it. This Cartesian "Me" is a software reality, not a 
hardware reality...."

dmb quotes a website, which quotes Pirsig:
...while studying philosophy at Benares Hindu University, Pirsig came across 
the Sanskrit doctrine of Tat tvam asi -- in his words, "Thou art that, which 
asserts that everything you think you are (Subjective) and everything you 
think you perceive (Objective) are undivided. To fully realize this lack of 
division is to become enlightened."

dmb quotes Joe Campbell:
"Already in the 8th century B.C., in the Chhandogya Upanisad, the key word
to such a meditation is announced; TAT TVAM ASI, "Thou art That", or "You
yourself are It!". The final sense of a religion such as Hinduism or
Buddhism is to bring about in the individual an experience, one way or
another, of his own IDENTITY with that mystery that is the mystery of all
being. ...it is the mystery also of many of our own Occidental mystics; and
many of these have been burned for having said as much. Westward of Iran, in
all three of the great traditions that have come to us from the Near Eastern
zone, namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, such concepts are unthinkable
and sheer heresy. God created the world. Creator and creature cannot be the
same, since, as Aristotle tells us, A is not-A. Our theology, therefore,
begins from the point of view of waking consciousness and Aristotelian
logic; whereas, on another level of consciousness - and this, the level to
which all religions must finally refer - the ultimate mystery transcends the
laws of dualistic logic, causality and space-time. Anyone who says, as Jesus
is reported to have said (John 10:30), 'I and the Father are One', is
declared in our tradition to have blasphemed."

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